Random Shits

•  Last night, FC Barcelona played like there were 15 men in the football field, to clinch their third Champion’s Leagues title. On a side note, did you know that Paulino Alcantara, born in the Philippines on 1896, is not only FC Barcelona’s youngest ever player debuting at age 15, but also the club’s all-time leading goal scorer, with a whopping 357 goals in 357 matches! If only the Filipinos of today would realize that playing football instead of basketball would be a much much better sports for them if they want to be in a level playing field in international tournaments.
• The erratic swedish weather is starting to take its toll on me. The novelty of having spring, summer, fall and winter in 24 hours is not amusing anymore.  
• Work is busier than ever. Summer conferences mean abstract deadlines for presentations, which translate to feverish data generation on the lab bench. Data interpretation is another thing though. As my fave nihilist Herr Nietzsche quipped, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” I don’t generally share his opinion especially when my data readily reveal something without the need of tedious statistics. Someone said that if you need more complicated statistics to interpret your data, you probably need to repeat your experiments. OR perhaps it is easier to just abandon your hypothesis.
    
•  James Watson, the other guy in the Watson-Crick tandem who solved the DNA structure half a century back and got a Nobel for it, was on a speaking engagement here a couple of weeks ago. He said that if you don’t work on a Sunday, you are probably not in an important research field (or something to that effect). I don’t work on Sundays but I know that I am working within a very important research field. I know so because most of my colleagues work on Sundays. LOL!

   

• I plan to start windsurfing around July. That is if  the weather permits. But then as the Swedes say, there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. Indeed I saw last January, in the middle of winter some crazy swedes kitesurfing along the coast of south Sweden. They are probably wearing some kind of Star Trek wet suits made of intelligent material which can maintain normal body temp.  
• And speaking of Star Trek, I am planning to reconstruct my ears like those of Dr. Spock’s. When I grow up, I would like to be a half-human, half-vulcan like him. I already have his haircut.
   
• Finally, I heard something profound over the radio this morning. “When one is  healthy, one tends to have 100 wishes. When one is sick, there tend to be only one wish left.” Some people though don’t abandon their other 100 wishes when they become sick. It becomes 101 instead, which is kinda’ not a healthy attitude, right? In my case, since I’m the type who leads a very simple life, I only have one wish even when I’m healthy. That is not to get sick.